Are Goldman Sachs Bankers Really Carrying Guns?

By

Deal Journal

Dec 9, 2009 5:05 pm ET

Susanne Craig files this dispatch:

Goldman Sachs bankers aren’t packing heat after all.

Associated Press

In a widely-circulated Bloomberg News commentary piece, columnist Alice Schroeder said that she was told New York-based Goldman bankers were loading up on fire arms and “are now equipped to defend themselves if there is a populist uprising against the bank.”

The “New York Police Department has told me that ‘as a preliminary matter’ it believes some of the bankers I inquired about do have pistol permits. The NYPD also said it will be a while before it can name names,” Schroeder wrote.

The story caught the public imagination, making the rounds on the Internet and in tabloids. Goldman employees “are concerned about social unrest,” said Schroeder in a Bloomberg video. “They’re concerned about the fact that we’ve got a country where a quarter of the kids are on food stamps, and they’ve become an emblem, a symbol of greed.” (View the video of Schroeder here.)

New York police spokesman Paul J. Browne says that their records show only four Goldman employees have applied for gun permits in recent years — and the last application was made in 2003. That application, by the firm’s head of security for a “carry permit”, was granted. The only other employee granted a NYPD carry permit” is a building security guard. It was issued prior to 2003, said a police spokesman. Those applying for a permit must list their employer.